- Photos, why the fanciful costumes, why Republicans should be afraid of who’s protesting; Heather Cox Richardson; Robert Reich;
- And Republicans, who are either in denial, are obtuse, or are cynically playing to their base;
- And arrests? A couple three, of [MAGA] women threatening the protestors;
- (And I’m not mentioning Trump’s scatological video posted this morning. This is where we are, and I continue to be astonished that his fans don’t care.)
The Atlantic, 19 Oct 2025: Photos: More ‘No Kings’ Protests Across the U.S.
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With some insight into the tactics of funny costumes.
Slate, Molly Olmstead, 19 Oct 2025: We Interviewed an Anti-Trump Inflatable Frog. It Made Some Great Points., subtitled “Left Shark, an Among Us alien, and a unicorn also dispensed some real wisdom.”
At a mass protest on downtown’s Pennsylvania Avenue, the joking signs outnumbered the serious. There were people in colonial America costumes and in clown costumes; some signs mentioned “6-7.” One protester held a sign calling for Tom Cruise to save them; another accused Trump of loving Nickelback. One group carried a Flying Spaghetti Monster banner. There were some old hits—the Handmaid’s Tale costumes from the Women’s March days, for example, and tiny hands. But there were more references to antifa: some women dressed as “Aunt Tifa” with reading glasses and curlers in their hair, a reference to Republican efforts to portray anti-fascist protesters as extremists.
“I Stand with Frog Dude,” one banner read. Another: “No Kings, Only Frogs.”
It’s a joke, but it’s not only a joke. At a time when the administration is seeking to portray its political opponents as seditious enemies—ones worthy of violence and prosecution—the injection of levity is a matter of strategy: In some No Kings protests, organizers encouraged participants to show up in Halloween costumes. These organizers aimed to deny the administration what it had been desperately seeking: an enemy serious enough to justify an emergency declaration.
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And this.
The New Republic, Malcolm Ferguson, 19 Oct 2025: Republicans Should Be Afraid—Just Look at Who Joined No Kings Protests, subtitled “For days, Republicans have been claiming No Kings protesters are all agitators and terrorists. Well, America had a different message for them, and for their dear leader.”
Listening to anyone from the Trump administration talk about the No Kings protest would have had you expecting complete anarchy. Masked men with Molotov cocktails, smoke in the air, American flags burning, police and National Guard in full riot gear—something more akin to January 6.
“This crazy No Kings rally this weekend, which is gonna be the farthest left, the hardest core, the most unhinged in the Democratic Party, which is a big title,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, claiming that the Democrats were for some reason waiting for the rally to happen before negotiating to end the government shutdown. “No Kings equal no paychecks.”
And so on. (Again: they’re projecting.)
But much to the chagrin of the GOP, the No Kings rally in Washington, D.C., was not unhinged, not very far left, and entirely peaceful. The atmosphere was extremely energetic and family friendly for both young and old. People walked slowly, often with kids in tow. Countless attendees wore large inflatable costumes, inspired by the Portland frog. There was live music, tabling, and speeches by Bill Nye, Mehdi Hasan, and Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy, among others. And while the event was massive, the vibe was closer to that of a lively farmer’s market on a nice Sunday morning than it was to whatever the right was trying so desperately to convince people it would be.
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Heather Cox Richardson offers her typically calm and measured assessment of events, if only briefly.
Today, millions of Americans and their allies turned out across the United States and around the globe to demonstrate their commitment to American democracy and their opposition to a president and an administration apparently bent on replacing that democracy with a dictatorship.
Administration loyalists tried to claim the No Kings protests would be “hate America” rallies of “the pro-Hamas wing and Antifa people.” Texas governor Greg Abbott deployed the Texas National Guard ahead of the No Kings Day protests, warning that “[v]iolence and destruction will never be tolerated in Texas.”
In fact, protesters turned out waving American flags and wearing frog and unicorn and banana costumes and carrying homemade signs that demanded the release of the Epstein files and defended Lady Liberty. They laughed and danced and took selfies and sang. City police departments, including those of New York City, San Diego, and Washington, D.C., said they had made no protest-related arrests.
And
The No Kings demonstrations ran the gamut from hundreds of thousands of protesters in large, blue cities, to smaller crowds in small towns in Republican-dominated states. Together, they demonstrate that the administration’s claims to popularity are a lie. Such a high turnout means businesses and institutions that thought they must cater to the administration to appeal to a majority of Americans will be forced to recalculate.
And the protests showed that Americans care fervently about democracy.
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A similarly short post from Robert Reich.
Robert Reich, 19 Oct 2025: Sunday thought: In Solidarity, subtitled “The connection between No Kings Day 2.0 and victory”
It was a huge success.
Yesterday, millions of us affirmed the foundation of the common good.
Across America, people who never before participated in a demonstration showed their solidarity: with immigrants being targeted by Trump, with current and former public officials whom Trump is prosecuting, with the students and universities whose freedom to learn and speak is being threatened by Trump, and with every American who’s determined to reject dictatorship.
Most of the people who came together in Guthrie, Oklahoma, and Mineola, Texas, and Newberry, North Carolina, and thousands of other towns and cities to express their outrage at what Trump is doing weren’t heard or seen by the rest of the nation.
But their solidarity is echoing across the land.
That solidarity is stronger than Trump and his lapdogs. Our determination is more powerful. The connection between yesterday’s demonstrations and our coming victory over tyranny is clear…
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And yet, Republicans are either in denial, are obtuse, or are cynically playing their base.
- Politico: Speaker Johnson doubles down on ‘No Kings’ criticism following demonstrations nationwide, subtitled “He alleged the protests indicate ‘a rise of Marxism in the Democratic Party.'” — No, it has nothing to do with Marxism or the government shutdown.
- JMG: Fox Host: Yesterday Proves Dems Want A “Leftist King” — No, it proves no such thing. I suspect she’s not quite mentally all there. (She thinks Joe Biden was a leftist king??)
- Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, 18 Oct 2025: Sen. John Barrasso targets American Atheists in bizarre smear of “No Kings” protests, subtitled “The Majority Whip falsely accused the atheist group of leading ‘I Hate America’ rallies” — Another lie and/or baseless smear.
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You mean among all these protest demonstrations, there were no arrests?
Well, yes there were a couple three.
These are arrests of women threatening the No King demonstrators. Perhaps they believed the stories that the No Kings demonstrators were violent terrorists.
The poster provides these sources, which I won’t actually link:
https://www.outerbanksnews.org/post/kitty-hawk-woman-arrested-charged-with-assaulting-protester
https://www.wmbfnews.com/2025/10/18/woman-arrested-after-brandishing-gun-no-king-protest-myrtle-beach/.
And another in the comments:
https://www.citizensvoice.com/2025/10/18/witnesses-trump-supporter-flashed-gun-to-crowd-at-wilkes-barre-no-kings-protest/
